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University of Minnesota

Kathryn A. Martin Library

Scholarly Sources

Learn how to identify, find, and understand different types of scholarly sources.

Articles & Books

You will probably be asked to find peer-reviewed, scholarly sources for your assignments. Peer review is a formal process in which works are evaluated by fellow experts in a field prior to publication. One way to find these sources is by using the library's Articles & Books search.

Screen capture of the search box on the UMD Library's homepage with "treaty rights ecological restoration" in the search field under Artlces & Books tab.

The Articles & Books search can be a helpful tool for exploring a variety of source types. You can think of this search as your main portal for finding scholarly articles and books. When you enter your search terms Articles & Books will automatically put it in parentheses; it's just a default feature. Look under the "Filter my results" heading for options to limit your results by availability, material type, and date. There is also a peer-reviewed filter, but be cautious when using it. Not all of the results will be scholarly articles - some will include book reviews, conference proceedings, and other scholarly communication.

 

Articles & Books results page for "treaty rights ecological knowledge" search. The "Filter my results" section on the right side of the page is highlighted by a blue square.

Databases

Another place to find scholarly articles is an academic database. Most of the databases provided by the library are subject specific. Databases are similar to library catalogs, in that you're searching a collection of resources electronically. Databases contain different types of resources, including articles, books, images, videos, etc. Not all databases will provide the full text of a resource, in which case look for the Find It button to check other databases or request the item through interlibrary loan. 

Below is a screenshot of the library's Database List. To filter by subject, use the All Subjects drop down menu. If you're not sure which database to use, Academic Search Premier is a good starting place because it is a large multidisciplinary database. It contains information on a wide variety of subjects and types of sources. The Icon Legend to the right provides additional context about who can access each database. If you are affiliated with UMD, you can access most databases on and off campus.

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To select a list of databases within a particular subject, you can use the All Subjects drop down menu. For example, if your topic is on ecological restoration, you may want to look at the library's list of environment and sustainability databases. After selecting a subject, your filtered results will include a Best Bets section at the top that highlights the best databases available for that subject.

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Tip:

If you like to search in Google Scholar, you may have run into paywalls, where you've been prompted to pay to access a resource. Fortunately, there is a way you can connect Google Scholar to the UMD Library in order to get around many of those paywalls: